


Boyfriend

by jo19844_twfic



Series: 100 fic prompts [14]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Fluff, M/M, janto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-15
Updated: 2015-09-15
Packaged: 2018-04-20 22:45:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4804994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jo19844_twfic/pseuds/jo19844_twfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ianto seems to have an issue with a certain word.  for the prompt "boyfriend"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boyfriend

Gwen Cooper turned the key in the lock and waited for the large cog door to open; she didn't much like coming into a work on a Saturday, but Torchwood didn't _do_ weekends. Just for once she wished the rift would take a day off, or at least sleep in so that she could enjoy a lazy Saturday bacon buttie in her pyjamas like the good old days. She had slipped on her best pair of jeans and a crisp red shirt in the hope that she could escape for lunch and meet Rhys at the pub without looking like a complete car-wreck. She just hoped that she didn't have to sponge Weevil blood off the collar this time. 

Her Saturday morning frown disappeared when she saw Ianto swish towards her, coffee in one hand and a plate in the other. He always knew how to keep a girl happy (although, in a much different way than he kept Jack happy) and as always he had anticipated her craving for a bacon buttie. 

“Morning!” She smiled, sitting down as her breakfast treat was delivered in front of her. “You’re like a bloody angel you are.”

“Saturday morning,” Ianto commented. “You’ll have a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp if you don't get your bacon fix.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“You look nice today,” Ianto said pleasantly. “New jeans?”

“Trust you to notice.” Gwen pushed herself back from her desk, swinging her chair around to face Ianto who perched on the edge of her desk taking nursing sips of his morning coffee. “You're looking sharp as usual. I never know how you can look this put together so early in the morning.”

“I get up early,” he explained casually. “I'm not one to stop in bed until midday craving a bacon sandwich.”

“Oi!” Gwen nudged him playfully with his foot. “It’s nine o'clock.”

“I've been here since eight.” 

“Is Jack around?” Gwen asked, taking Ianto’s hand signal as a hint to wipe a trail of ketchup from her chin. “I wanted to ask him something.” 

“He's here somewhere,” Ianto said. “Not talked to him yet.” 

Gwen put down her coffee, wiping a little grease off her hands with a napkin before leaning forward to put her hand on the Welshman’s knee. “Is everything alright?”

“Fine, why?” 

“You just said you've been in since eight,” Gwen said. “You've had time to make coffee, tidy up and dismantle that alien jigsaw we solved yesterday, but you haven’t spoken to Jack?” 

“I've been busy.” Ianto slipped away from the desk, turning his attention to tidying a pile of papers on the desk. “You two swan around here making a constant mess and never think to clean up after yourselves. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm not your personal maid.” 

“Oh God,” Gwen groaned, following him as he fussed. “Did you two have a lovers tiff?” 

“No!” Ianto denied firmly with annoyance. “Anyway, we don't have lovers tiffs we have--” He paused for a moment before finding the words. “Disagreements.”

“So, you've had a lover’s disagreement?” She pressed.

“Sort of.”

“What has he done?” She asked. “Or not done, did he forget something?”

“No.” Ianto moved away uncomfortably. “It’s fine.”

“He said something wrong didn’t he?” Gwen asked knowingly. “The Harkness mouth strikes again?”

“I--” Ianto thought about explaining, but just sighed instead. “Jack is in his office if you need him, I have to go and open the Information Centre.” 

“Ianto--” Gwen called after him but he was gone before she could stop him, breezing away coffee in hand, leaving nothing more than a faint aroma of pleasant aftershave and espresso in his wake. 

She finished the last bite of her sandwich and took a drink of her coffee to wash it down then logged onto her computer. Letting the system start up, she got out of her chair and walked into Jack’s office.

“Morning Jack.” She tried to sound casual. “What’s occurin’?”

“Hey.” Jack didn't look up from his desk. “Decided to join us then?”

“Is Ianto all right?” She asked. “He seems a bit off this morning.” 

“And why should I know?” 

“Well he's your--” Gwen paused for a moment before continuing. “He’s your friend isn't he?”

“He's yours too.” Jack stared down at the paperwork on his desk, flipping through the document page by page. 

“Yes, but he's your friend in the way my Granny used to call Danny Calahan my friend when I was sixteen.” She chuckled a little, walking half way into his office. “He’s your ‘ _friend_ ’” she punctuated her point with air quotes. 

“What?” Jack looked up for the first time, his brow knitted with confusion. 

“She caught us snogging behind my Grandad's shed, but she never really liked him-- bad family she said-- so could never find the strength to say boyfriend. She always used to whisper it like it was a dirty word.” 

“Y'know, you don't realise just how moody that man can be sometimes.” Jack leaned back in his chair, frustrated. “He seems so accepting, so easy to please but he is _not_.”

“So you _did_ have a lovers tiff, then?” 

“Did you need something?” Jack questioned. “Or did you just come in here to interfere in my personal life?” 

“It's like that then?” Gwen sighed. “You’re both just going to walk around with a cloud over your heads ignoring each other all day?” 

“Don't you have work to do?” He asked. “I can always find you something if you’re struggling for a project. I think there's a Weevil down in the vault that needs returning to the wild.”

“What did you do?” Gwen sighed. 

“Why do you presume I did anything?” He asked, offended. “Why can’t it be something _he_ did?” 

“You're Jack Harkness,” Gwen explained bluntly. “Definitive proof that no matter how long a man lives, he still lacks the ability to think about what he's saying before he speaks.” 

Jack let out an exasperated sigh. “The rift monitor is showing a spike at the vineyard again could you give them a call and ask them if they're still using that alien technology to ripen their grapes. Better still, pay them a visit and give them a friendly reminder that we’re watching them.”

“Jack--”

“And bring a decent bottle back with you, too.” Jack concentrated on his work again. “Tell him you need it for analysis, but make it a good one.”

“Fine.” Gwen sighed and made for the door, then turned back and walked over to him; she leaned into his ear a little. “When I do something to upset Rhys I buy him an Apple Danish. They're his favourite and that combination of pastry and fruit is a perfect way to say: sorry I'm a bit shit, I'll do better next time.” 

“Thanks for the tip, I'll remember that for the next time I piss off your husband.” Jack looked back over his shoulder at her. “Now, are you going to visit the vineyard?” 

“Fine.” Gwen sighed, then leaned back into his ear, whispering: “Ianto is fond of a peach Melba if I remember correctly.” 

“Y'know last time I checked, you were a Torchwood agent, not a teen magazine agony aunt.” Jack gave her a smile that was more than a little irritated. 

“I'll go and check on those grapes.” 

“Good idea.”

Gwen made a quick exit.

* * *

Ianto responded to the ring of the service bell by popping his head out of the beaded curtain in the information centre and looked around. Where he expected to see a lost tourist he found nobody. His attention turned to the desk and he stated at the gigantic peach melba that had materialised alongside a paper coffee cup, filled to the top with whipped cream. He looked at it suspiciously, dipping his finger into the cream before taking a taste.

“Apparently fruit and pastry are the perfect way to make up.” Jack appeared behind him. “But I figured I needed a little extra so I got you hazelnut late just to swing things in my favour.” 

“You always did like to use your own initiative.” 

“I didn't realise it was a bad word.” Jack stepped closer, leaning his hands on the desk either side of the Welshman to box him in a little. He pressed a kiss to his neck, letting it linger a moment “I won't use it again.”

“It's not a bad word,” Ianto explained. “I just wasn't expecting it.”

“Why?” Jack asked, turning him around. “We go on dates, we have a lot of _really_ good sex and I spend more time sleeping in your bed than I do my own. I didn't think that calling you my boyfriend was a huge leap.” 

“It's not,” Ianto said quickly. 

“Then why haven't you spoke to me since I said it?”

“It's complicated.” 

“Because it's new or because you don't want to be?” Jack asked quietly. “Did I misinterpret what we’re doing here?”

“It's not that.” Ianto sighed, looking up to meet his eyes for the time in twelve and a half hours. “I'm temporary and that was fine before you put a label on it.”

“What do you mean, temporary?”

“We don't talk about it, but we know it is, so I would prefer if you just didn't call it anything.” 

“What?” Jack asked, more than a little confused. “What are you talking about, what’s temporary?”

Ianto stepped away from him a little, busying himself with the newest brochures on river cruises. “How many times I have heard you talk about your past, reduce relationships down to funny anecdotes and punchlines?”

“Ianto--”

“In the future I’ll just be another person you dated whose name you can't even remember any more.”

“That's not true.” 

“I'll be the boyfriend you had once who you bring up whenever anyone references coffee or good tailoring.” Ianto finished what he was doing, then turned around. He smiled in the way he always did when he was trying to seem okay. “ I'm fine being temporary, I just don't want to be a punchline ten years from now.”

“There are plenty of people I have loved who I never talk about because it hurts to,” Jack explained. “When you've lived as long as I have you have a lot of funny stories to tell about crazy hook-ups.”

“Nice--”

“Have you ever heard me joke about Angelo Colasanto?” Jack asked. 

“No.”

“And you never will,” He slipped his hand over Ianto’s fingers, lacing them together in his grasp. “Do you want to know why?” 

“Why?” Ianto asked. 

“Because I felt about him how I feel about you,” Jack explained. “He’ll never be a punchline, or an anecdote because that would cheapen what we had.” 

“So he was your--” Ianto stopped mid-sentence. “You two were--”

“You can say it.”

“He was you boyfriend?”

“Back then we just called them lovers, but yeah.” Jack smiled sadly. “He was important to me, much like you are and we were together a while. I think about him all the time but I never joke about him, just like you never joke about Lisa.” 

“I won't be around forever,” Ianto said. “I won't be young forever.”

“Age is a number.” Jack pulled the Welshman towards him. “I know that more than anyone.” 

“It's hard for me sometimes, y'know to understand everything?”

“I know.”

“It’s a really weird situation to be in,” Ianto explained. “Having a-- you living so long.”

“So we're not going to be together forever, at least not _my_ forever, but it doesn't mean that you're temporary.” Jack kissed him softly. “You'll never be temporary.” 

“I'm sorry,” Ianto said. “I might have overreacted a little bit.”

“I won’t use it again if it freaks you out.”

“You can use it,” Ianto told him, slipping his hands playing idly with an open button on Jack’s shirt. “It’s nice actually.” 

“Yeah?”

“Why don’t I take you out tonight, rift permitting and we’ll make up properly?” Ianto suggested, his smile verging on sly.

“Well, Gwen is out, we could always make up now.” Jack slipped his hands over the younger man’s arse and gave it a firm squeeze as he pulled their bodies together. 

“In work hours?” Ianto kissed him softly. “As tempting as your offer is, we made an agreement not to do that any more.”

“Actually, Gwen made us promise not to do it any more,” he reminded him. “And she’s not here. Anyway we had a fight, we’re making up. It’s good for morale.” 

Ianto pressed the button underneath the desk and the locks slammed shut. Wrapping his hand around Jack’s neck, Ianto pulled him into a kiss, letting the older man press him against the counter a little. His fingers found Jack’s braces and pushed them over his shoulders, moving down to his belt when he was done. He unfastened his belt without breaking the kiss, then grabbed the waistband of his trousers. 

“In that case sir, I think you had better step into my office.” 

The Welshman returned to Jack’s lips, kissing him hungrily as he pulled him backwards through the beaded curtain and into his office.


End file.
